Why is the rest of the world complaining about our president's plan to liberate the Iraqi people? Don't they realize our government is only trying to protect them by helping them to create a friendly democratic government? Look for example at some of the wonderful democratic governments the United States has put or kept in power just in the last 45 years.

We put Mobuto Sese Seko in power in the Congo in 1960; Jonas Savimbi in Angola in the 1980s when President Reagan acknowledged him as a "freedom fighter;" General Suharto in Indonesia in 1965; Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran in 1955; Francois "Baby Doc" Duvalier in Haiti in 1959 when he was nearly overthrown by a popular revolt; and Guillermo Endara in Panama in 1990. Before Endara, we supported Manuel Noriega with significant financing until President Carter officially removed him from the payroll in 1977.

Everything would go much more smoothly if the Iraqis would just let us liberate them and give them a nice democratic government like one of the ones we've given to other countries in the past. Perhaps they're just complaining because they know American history better than we do.

Charles H. Morgan, Jr.
mathematics graduate student